[QUOTE=elizabeth Callahan;7642657]
As a FYI, smart packs ultra gut actually was clinically tested ( and there were scopings before and after) to prevent ulcers. Will not treat them, but did prevent them. Less $ than pop rocks, and clinically tested…[/QUOTE]
cool beans. Will look into this. I am currently doing ulcergard with a 1/2 tube day before, day of, and day after competing but am always open to an alternative.
The key with Gastro/Ulcergard is that it prohibits production of hydrochloric acid, which is produced 24/7 in horses (versus humans who only produce it when we eat). And it prohibits production for approximately 24 hours. This is what I remember off the top of my head, so don’t hesitate to correct me if I’m wrong regarding the specifics. :yes:
I’ll have to look up the SmartPak study. Very interested to see how the product prevents ulcers.
Believe me, I HATE the cost of Ulcergard, but I hate ulcers even more. 
And I know my writing comes across a bit strongly, but I work in the field of evidence-based medicine and am very careful about what products I use as every penny counts and I don’t want to waste them on something that isn’t effective.
[QUOTE=retreadeventer;7642648]
Hmm. If I were designing a scientific test, I would do all of what you guys have done. Use the Ulcergard. Use the pop rocks. [/QUOTE]
Except it doesn’t work like that. (1) A large % of ulcers are in the hindgut, where a scope can’t see anyway. (2) You’d need a large enough sample size of horses that you could control so they are working/living under the same conditions, as there are way too many confounding variables. (3) Comparing two products is much harder than testing a single product against nothing, as you then have to have ALL the information about both (get companies to release it) and you then have to add more controls and use a different study design to account for the added variability of multiple factors.
I know you were suggesting it in fun, as it would be very expensive, but I just wanted to post for future readers, as it’s important to understand if you want to be an informed horse owner. Stories really ARE just stories. In some cases, hey, if it worked for you, that’s awesome. But it’s a big leap to then say it will work for someone else, because, particularly with horses and internal issues, it is quite likely that the problem was something else entirely that resolved itself with convenient timing.
Omeprazole is not heinously risky, but other substances that get bandied about on anecdotes and generic forms certainly can be, so I just encourage folks to take a closer look and really think about how you want to spend your money in the big picture. 
the ONLY thing that works on my guy is the Merial products.
I’ve tried pop rocks (for preventative) and Smart Gut (never Smart Gut Ultra) and both did not work.
Also, when the horse was scoped positive with ulcers it took 2 weeks of the full Gastrogard treatment for him to start to respond. It took 2 FULL months to clear him up.
Yeah, it’s the ultra that has the study
Let me start by saying that I have just had a horse with confirmed-by-scope ulcers that I treated with GastroGard and have just confirmed, again by scope, that said GG worked as all ulcers are healed.
Posted by wildlifer
Yes, the product IS a coated omeprazole product. HOWEVER, due to poor QA/QC when tested, the amount of omeprazole you get may be anywhere from zero to way too much. Fortunately, it is unlikely that omeprazole will kill a horse if overdosed, but the level of active ingredient in that product is completely inconsistent from batch to batch.
Um, to use your phrase… Citation? Do you have data showing results of any tests actually performed on Abler BPR that demonstrates the lack of batch consistency? I would very much like to see that data as I have so far come up empty finding any objective data. Period. Have you been to the Abler manufacturing sites in India or Vanuatu and observed the poor QA/QC practices you just stated?
Everyone gets to make their own choices for their own horses, but I shall continue to stick with what I have a reasonable confidence in that at least I am getting what I think I am paying for!
Many people are (a) ok with that risk, which I can understand, since, as horsepeople, we are prone to be desperate to believe in something that can fix our horses, none of us are exempt from that! and (b) in the category which, by the laws of probability, happened to get enough batches with enough of the product to do the job OR they were guessing and the issue was something else.
While I’m certainly no friend of big pharma, when it comes time to use medications, I’m going to continue to do my due diligence, including consulting with my vet who always stays current on the science, to stack the deck with as many cards in favour as possible.
One question… Do you know where your Merial FDA - approved GastroGard and UlcerGard are manufactured? Do you trust their product because you think it is “Made in the USA”? I have recently purchased 40 tubes of GG and another 40 tubes of UG. Every one was “Made in Brazil”. I wonder how much routine FDA oversight is provided to a manufacturing facility in Brazil?
I have no opinion about the efficacy of abler product. But I have a strong opinion about assumptions made without supporting data. I spent a large part of my career as a Certified Quality Engineer, later as a QA Manager in a highly regulated industry, working for a US based multinational corporation and have spent time in manufacturing plants around the globe. I have seen deplorable QA/QC practices in many countries, including here, and have seen outstanding QA/QC practices, again, both here and abroad.
You want data? So do I! Seems to be in short supply.
LOL, yes, I know where things are made. No, I am not in any way blindly proceeding without thorough research – I am a research scientist, and have been at both the federal and state level for over a decade. No illusions here.
Although my current field is freshwater biology, the QA/QC issue, rigorous attention to process detail, and the ability to produce, interpret, and replicate data in a way that is relevant on a regional, national, or global scale are all critical every single day.
So yeah. I’m going to ignore the sarcastic inquiry about trips to India. I actually have very little interest in the political boundaries surrounding a manufacturer and anyone who knows me would fall over laughing at that implication. I’ve lived in more than one country – people are people, for the most part, when you get down to the basics and even the notion that one person or process is superior to another simply because of where they happened to fall out of their mother is ludicrous (ok, so processes weren’t born, but whatever). Absolute crap gets made in the US, even by Amish people gasp and exquisite craftsmanship and dedication to consistency, safety, and detail abounds elsewhere.
Sorry, my brain is not Google Scholar, so I can’t produce citations at will, particularly if it was a white paper, nor do I keep a Binder of Women, I mean, Data (it’s a joke!). I could drive down to Raleigh and ask the NCSU Large Animal Clinic to please make findings more easily accessible for you, but I’m pretty tired after three days of field work, so not happening. Apologies to others, I probably shouldn’t type when I’m tired. The Vet School has a website, give them a call.
[QUOTE=wildlifer;7649340]
LOL, yes, I know where things are made. No, I am not in any way blindly proceeding without thorough research – I am a research scientist, and have been at both the federal and state level for over a decade. No illusions here.
Although my current field is freshwater biology, the QA/QC issue, rigorous attention to process detail, and the ability to produce, interpret, and replicate data in a way that is relevant on a regional, national, or global scale are all critical every single day.
So yeah. I’m going to ignore the sarcastic inquiry about trips to India. I actually have very little interest in the political boundaries surrounding a manufacturer and anyone who knows me would fall over laughing at that implication. I’ve lived in more than one country – people are people, for the most part, when you get down to the basics and even the notion that one person or process is superior to another simply because of where they happened to fall out of their mother is ludicrous (ok, so processes weren’t born, but whatever). Absolute crap gets made in the US, even by Amish people gasp and exquisite craftsmanship and dedication to consistency, safety, and detail abounds elsewhere.
Sorry, my brain is not Google Scholar, so I can’t produce citations at will, particularly if it was a white paper, nor do I keep a Binder of Women, I mean, Data (it’s a joke!). I could drive down to Raleigh and ask the NCSU Large Animal Clinic to please make findings more easily accessible for you, but I’m pretty tired after three days of field work, so not happening. Apologies to others, I probably shouldn’t type when I’m tired. The Vet School has a website, give them a call.[/QUOTE]
I wasn’t being sarcastic. I don’t know you and have made no assumptions about your politics. I do know that many (other) people believe that “FDA-Approved” means that a product is made in the USA and that that fact somehow makes it perfect or guaranteed.
I was actually hoping you would know where I could find data about abler. I guess I should infer from your reply that I should check with NCSU. Thanks for the tip. I will go crawl back under that rock I strayed away from, where my obvious ignorance is bliss.
[QUOTE=elizabeth Callahan;7642657]
As a FYI, smart packs ultra gut actually was clinically tested ( and there were scopings before and after) to prevent ulcers. Will not treat them, but did prevent them. Less $ than pop rocks, and clinically tested…[/QUOTE]
Finish line also did a clinical study of U-7 with an Oklahoma State Vet School clinician and had positive results. You can find a copy of the study results on their website, and U-7 worked for my horse as a preventative. But all horses are different and what works for one horse might not work for another one.
[QUOTE=Winding Down;7642675]
cool beans. Will look into this. I am currently doing ulcergard with a 1/2 tube day before, day of, and day after competing but am always open to an alternative.[/QUOTE]
This is what I did as well. Plus half a tube any day on a trailer or if I had to give bute for anything. I also switched a flake AM and PM for alfalfa and used ugard (both lower ph in the belly). It worked really well. Now my horse is retired he is on nothing. I miss the really useful ugard empty containers!
[QUOTE=Fox Wood Farm;7649454]
I don’t know you and have made no assumptions about your politics.[/QUOTE]
What??! You haven’t memorized the personal CV’s of every person in the COTH evening folder??? For shame! 
ETA – I also do know the OP IRL, so I figured she knew what my statements were worth (or not worth!).
I do know that many (other) people believe that “FDA-Approved” means that a product is made in the USA and that that fact somehow makes it perfect or guaranteed.
I agree and get that – lack of consumer investigation and awareness drives me nutters in all sorts of categories. Well, ok, more nutters than I already am… nocomment
I was actually hoping you would know where I could find data about abler. I guess I should infer from your reply that I should check with NCSU. Thanks for the tip. I will go crawl back under that rock I strayed away from, where my obvious ignorance is bliss.
Nah, don’t worry about crawling, it’s hard on your knees anyway. The internet just failed once again at conveying tone with bland text, imagine that. And like I said, I am exhausted and I imagine not the only person dealing with difficult issues outside the interwebz (heh). Sarcasm was a survival skill in my family, so it’s one of my most proficient dialects; I probably assume it more often than is warranted (ya think?).
My awesome, awesome vet does work closely with NCSU (most in the area do since, well, we’re in the Triangle area) and I’ve taken my horse to the ortho clinic down there as well, so yes, I believe they did some testing. My vet is excellent about staying current on the issues and products and trends and I swear, gives me a dissertation worthy treatise on about any issue I can think of to ask him about.
All of my encounters with vets, residents, and staff at the large animal clinic there have been awesome and helpful though, so I would not hesitate to make some phone calls and ask. I wish I DID have a Binder of Data, but knowing me, I’d probably just lose it anyway…
http://www.cvm.ncsu.edu/vhc/efac/
NCSU Vet Complex: Equine and Farm Animal Veterinary Center
(And if you ever have any sports medicine issues, I can confirm that Rich Redding is a god)
Here are my 2 cents: if you can afford it, scope your horse. I know of too many cases where the horse walked like and talked like they had ulcers and then they did not. Yes, scoping does not detect hindgut ulcers but the co-occurrence of the two is very very high.
If you cannot scope, then give a full tube of g or ugard for at least 3 days. If you detect NO improvement in behavior, then I would suspect that ulcers aren’t the problem. IOW, you can use lack of response to tx as a diagnostic tool… but this is NOT NEARLY as reliable as scoping.
FWIW, I have seen improvements in behavior within 48 hours on each horse I’ve scoped and treated. And I was very careful to work against the placebo effect (questioned myself as much as possible) since the good ole p.e. is probably the strongest drug out there known to all 
Behaviors can vary from being ornery and “frisky” to ornery and mean, to deadpan quiet and lazy… to just not looking as good as he should…
Medications other than omeprazole have not, to my knowledge, been shown to treat ulcers. However, they have been and can be highly effective in prevention. Ranitidine is probably the most supported in terms of clinical research.
All Omeprazole is NOT created equal! The carrier is the critical component here and the enteric coating on the blue pop rocks has NOT been demonstrated to reliably carry the omeprazole to the inhibitor site. Many are convinced that it works, and I am inclined to think this tx must work sometimes to some extent or there would not be the large number of people here extolling the virtues of the BPRs. Likewise, the other pastes etc may also work (I have a couple of friends who spend $100s monthly for these pastes for competition horses), but there are not, to my knowledge, clinical research findings that support this.
Videos of before and after do not constitute research findings. That’s just like before and after pictures of those who have been on special diets. C’mon folks, join me in this chorus here. We know that pictures don’t constitute research findings.
The research on the Gastrogard and Ulcergard is strong.
I want the alternative treatments to work. I still feed the BPRs to one of my horses (I bought a bunch of it). But if I am really worried about a horse, I will spend the $260 on scoping or do a trial run on Gastrogard and get down to business.
And now that I’ve thought about and researched treatments more fully, I will not be buying anything other than Ulcergard or Gastrogard if I am convinced a horse has ulcers. And my competition horse, who was recently treated with gastrogard, is now on Ranitidine 2x daily, along with a partial tube of GGard before, during, and after travel. The Ranitidine helps to coat the stomach for 2/3 of the day, which should go a long ways toward preventing a reoccurrence.
And my vet, who is brilliant (Wildlifer, my vet’s a God as well, ;-0) advisess the above…
Solo stayed on ranitidine in his SmartPak (I got tired of grinding pills) for the latter part of his competitive career too. They’ll even let you pick a flavour, hee! I have no time, so very convenient. Once we found the dose that worked for him, it was great and definitely kept his belleh happy!
cheapest place I have found for Ranitidine is Costco, closely followed by http://www.piedmontequinepractice.com/pharmacy
Sorry the poprocks didn’t work for you.
I took my horse off of Ugard and about a month later he started getting spooky, and then acting worse and worse. This went on for a few weeks or so. I put him on pop rocks and he was a different horse 2 days later, back to his normal lazy self. I kept him on it for 30 days and put him back on Ugard and he was fine.
Until…an outgoing barn manager stopped feeding all supplements and didn’t tell anyone. My horse started acting crazy again (rearing, spooky, dufus). We realized he hadn’t had his Ugard in some time. Put him on pop rocks. Back to normal within a day or two.
While I didn’t have him scoped, he showed very specific behavior when removed from Ugard and that behavior was resolved almost immediately after using Abler’s Omeprazole.
This is not scientific, but for this horse I feel that the pop rocks work just fine and I’m happy with the cash savings.
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